A Weekly Digest of the Mathematical Internet

Jim Loy, Exploding Dots, and an Advent Calendar

Jim Loy

Welcome to this week’s Math Munch! We’ve got a mathematical advent calendar for you, two new puzzle pages, and a whole course’s worth of videos and problems to think about. Let’s get into it.

Up first, if you like you can read all about Jim Loy (and just about anything else) on his enormous website. The thing I want to share with you are Jim’s puzzle pages. You could pull out some toothpicks or spaghetti and try these matchstick puzzles, or perhaps you want to give his maze a try. Or maybe you just want to learn about the pig pen cipher, a kind of code.

Matchstick Puzzles

Jim’s Maze

Pig Pen Cipher

Up next, some math in the holiday spirit. Plus Magazine has a nice little advent calendar going on again this year. They’re counting down to Christmas by posting their “favourite bits of maths” – a new post each day. On the website you can see preview pictures for each day, which has me pretty excited. What could #7 be? What is going on in 18?! Check out #2. It’s a nice little explanation of a classic math story about Achilles and the tortoise. (Zeno’s Paradox). Plus Magazine is a great website in general, but you have to be prepared to do some reading. According to their about page,

“Plus is an internet magazine which aims to introduce readers to the beauty and the practical applications of mathematics. A lot of people don’t have a very clear idea what “real” maths consists of, and often they don’t realise how many things they take for granted only work because of a generous helping of it.”

Finally, you might remember James Tanton for his partition videos. Well, he just released a really cool series of videos and math activities that’s completely free and online. It’s kind of an entire math course (but it’s unlike any course you’ve seen before), and it’s called “Exploding Dots.” As James says in the intro video above, this is his favorite topic of all time! The course is broken up into 4 lessons, with a handful of videos in each lesson, and there are some really nice questions to think about. I’ve studied math for many years at this point, but there were lots of things that surprised me.

I am Gabrielle from Midwood and i am in Ms. Menard’s eighth period Algebra class.
I enjoyed watching your video although I am left with some questions:
– What is the difference between arithmetic and algebra?
– Does this topic go under calculus or another form of math? If so , Why?

Math and Algebra. It’s basically that each consists of Geometry, statistics, and equations. There’s one difference, algebra has variables (letters), and regular math doesn’t. BTW where’s the exploding dots? If it’s entitled exploding dots it should at least have ONE EXPLODING DOT!!!!!